


show me your teeth

by blackkat



Series: IruZabu Drabbles [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cultural Differences, Developing Relationship, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 05:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “Are those evenpractical?” Iruka hisses, unable to tear his eyes away from his mission partner.





	show me your teeth

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: iruka/zabuza, zabuzas teeth are far too distracting/they have to work together on a mission.

“Are those even _practical_?” Iruka hisses, unable to tear his eyes away from his mission partner.

“Hm?” Kakashi asks carelessly, and the bastard doesn’t even bother to look up from his book. “I'm pretty sure Kiri nin don’t care about that kind of thing.”

“But _why_?” Iruka asks helplessly, as something his new teammate’s apprentice says makes said teammate laugh, showing teeth that have been filed into sharp, menacing points. “Can he even _floss_?”

That, of all things, makes Kakashi lift his head and eye him for a long, silent moment. “Iruka-sensei,” he says, with a very odd tone. “Is that really the first place your mind went when you saw Zabuza’s teeth?”

Iruka flushes, heat surging up towards his hairline, and throws the mission scroll with devastating accuracy. It pegs Kakashi right between the eyes and bounces off, and Iruka hisses, “_My first thoughts are none of your business_!”

Kakashi stares at him for a long moment, then raises a hand to rub at his forehead and says mournfully, “There’s no need to get violent, sensei. I'm pretty sure every man thinks that when they see him.”

The words don’t help Iruka’s blush, and he deeply regrets the fact that the only other thing he has to throw is a kunai. He’d risk it, because Kakashi would _probably_ catch it, but he gets the feeling he’s going to need every single weapon he has packed for this mission. Genma certainly looked haggard when he got back from his mission with the Suna jounin he was assigned to, and all he would say was that Baki was an asshole.

Maybe, Iruka reflects, the Sandaime’s attempt at fostering inter-village bonds with cooperative international missions is well-intentioned but more than a little misguided.

“Besides,” Kakashi says blithely, and beams at Iruka. “You knew _exactly_ what I was referring to, sensei. _That’s_ interesting, isn't it?”

Iruka splutters, shoving up from his seat and leveling a threatening finger at Kakashi’s face. “You're a _pervert_!” he snaps. “Leave me out of whatever dirty thoughts you think I'm thinking!”

Perfect silence. Perfect, ringing silence, and if Iruka’s face gets any hotter he’s going to turn purple and faint dead away.

Then, even more mortifyingly, the extremely pretty jounin who led the group of Kiri nin here puts a hand up to her mouth to muffle a snicker. “Well,” she says, all throaty amusement, “on that note. Zabuza, unknot the apron strings. Your apprentice is staying with me.”

The laughter on Zabuza’s face shifts into a scowl. “Haku, ice her damn bath every night and I’ll keep my mouth shut about you torturing Suigetsu,” he says, pitched to carry, and the child with him—probably eight, unless Iruka misses his guess—lifts a sleeve to cover his laugh.

“Yes, Zabuza,” he returns, and the kunoichi huffs.

“I’ll change your mind yet, sweetheart,” she says, beckoning the boy to her. Then her stare shifts to Zabuza, and she all but purrs, “Don’t embarrass the village, Momochi.”

Zabuza flips her off, then folds his arms over his impressively wide chest. He’s…intimidating. Possibly mildly alarming, but Iruka’s usual response to attempted intimidation is to stalk up to whatever is threatening him and kick it in the shin, so that’s not a helpful thought to have. He vary desperately contains the impulse, locking his hands behind his back and reciting a mental list of all the ways Sarutobi will likely torture him if he offends the Kiri delegation when he finally got them to agree to these exercises. The least of which is making him wrangle paperwork for the rest of eternity, letting Mizuki take over his spot at the Academy. Iruka worked too hard to get that spot as a teacher; he can control himself in the face of that.

“Good luck,” Kakashi says cheerfully, waggling his fingers in a maddening wave as he tucks his porn away and saunters over to the kunoichi. “Mei, right?” he asks. “Has anyone showed you to the local jounin bar yet?”

Mei eyes him like a lioness eyeing a gazelle that wandered too close, and rises to her feet and takes his arm in one smooth movement. “Not _yet_,” she says, leaning in. “You’ll fix that for me, won't you, Kakashi?”

Iruka would have combusted under the heat of that look; Kakashi just snickers, and swans out of the meeting room with the most beautiful woman Iruka’s ever seen on his arm.

The world, Iruka laments, is patently unfair.

In the silence, Iruka tries to marshal himself not to do something stupid, but as he looks up, he can't keep from casting another quick look at Zabuza’s face, but he’s watching his apprentice vanish through the door and doesn’t say anything. Definitely doesn’t smile, or laugh, and that’s when Iruka previously got his best look at those dagger teeth.

Then, suddenly enough to make him startle, Zabuza huffs and grabs his massive sword, slinging it over his shoulder like it weighs about as much as a normal katana. “We’re wasting daylight,” he says gruffly, and turns for the other door. Iruka scowls at his back, because that was _rude_, but he follows, trying to convince himself he’s resigned to what will probably end up being three _weeks_ of this.

Whoever assigned them this mission is a sadist or a troll. Iruka suspects Kakashi’s hand in at least _part_ of it.

Still, when he notices Zabuza hesitating briefly, he quickens his step to catch up, then nods to the left. “The southern gate is that way,” he says. “Unless you were thinking of leaving from a different direction?”

Zabuza grunts. “South’s fine,” he says, starting down the street, and then says, “Momochi Zabuza. You draw the short straw?”

“It’s a lottery,” Iruka says with all the dignity he can muster, which…isn't a lot. He’s a chuunin schoolteacher and the Hokage's part-time assistant, and Zabuza is part of Kiri's most elite shinobi unit, a swordsman better than practically any other in the Elemental Nations. _And_ he’s tall, strapping, and has those _teeth_.

A little vaguely, Iruka rubs at his scar, trying not to think about how he would look with sharpened teeth. How does Zabuza _eat_ with them? Doesn’t he cut his tongue?

To his surprise, that makes Zabuza snort. “Konoha, huh,” he says dryly, and then instead of explaining what he means by that, he asks, “Specialty? I haven’t seen you in the Bingo Book.”

Iruka flushes, and tells himself sternly that that’s nothing to be ashamed of. The Bingo Books put out by each village are meant to be a tally of potential threats their shinobi could encounter on the battlefield, and it makes perfect sense that Iruka wouldn’t be listed. He hardly ever takes missions outside of Konoha, too busy teaching or running errands, and his skills are best suited to a classroom anyway.

“Umino Iruka,” he says with all the composure he can muster. “I have a good grasp of most basic jutsus, and I'm very good at barrier ninjutsu.”

Zabuza stares at him for a long minute, and he should look ridiculous, bandages loose around his neck, pointy teeth, tiny eyebrows, but together the whole picture manages to scream _hunter_ more loudly than Kakashi’s lazy posture and permanent porn-reading has ever managed. Then, turning his eyes back ahead of them, he grunts, and says, “if you get in the way of my sword, I’ll cut you down, even if we’re supposed to be allies.”

A chill slides down Iruka’s spine, something like fear, and his breath catches. At the same moment, though, indignation flares like a match dropped into oil, and with a hiss he spins, grabs the stupid loose bandages around Zabuza’s neck, and wrenches him down until they’re nose to nose. Knocks away the hand that chops for his throat, and snaps, “_Are you a swordsman or not_?”

Zabuza stares at him, eyes wide and startled, and says nothing.

“I don’t know how they measure skill in Kiri,” Iruka says, louder and sharper than he intends to. “But in Konoha, _not killing your allies_ is part of having skill! Any idiot shinobi can swing a sword around! _I_ can swing a sword around! But I thought to be one of the Seven Swordsmen you had to be _good_ with it!”

Silence. Perfect silence. Iruka catches his breath, makes himself uncurl his fingers from Zabuza’s bandages, and takes a careful step back. It’s possible his knees are shaking, but he isn't going to acknowledge that.

“The southern gate,” he says with dignity, “is this way.” Then he turns on his heel and heads for it, keeping his pace perfectly steady. Zabuza has long legs. He can catch up if he wants to.

And, thankfully, it seems Iruka hasn’t entirely scared his mission partner off, because Zabuza is suddenly on his left, steps perfectly silent in a way not even ANBU can usually manage. They walk without speaking for six long blocks, and Iruka can feel the tension winding tight down his spine as he braces himself for another threat, for yelling, for those sharp teeth to rip his throat right out in one big bite—

“Chuunin, huh?” Zabuza asks, suddenly enough that Iruka twitches again, but he just sounds amused. Looks away, gaze lifting towards Konoha's skyline, and snorts. “Konoha,” he mutters, but he doesn’t explain what he means and Iruka is too bewildered to ask.

When they stop, they're still conceivably close enough to the nearest town that they could book a room at the inn and add it to the mission budget, but Zabuza doesn’t make any move to do so, just starts setting up camp, and Iruka doesn’t want to be the first to suggest it. He tells himself he’ll definitely mention it on the way home as he rolls out his bedroll and tugs out a ration bar for dinner. One of the nicest ways to celebrate a successful mission is to collapse into an extra fluffy bed, or maybe a hot spring.

Well. There are _other_ ways to celebrate a successful mission, but—Iruka supposes post-mission sex is not a thing that’s going to happen this time. And _not_ just because of what Kakashi was implying earlier. Which Iruka may or may not have been thinking about before that moment.

Surreptitiously, he shoots a look at Zabuza as he unwraps the bar, and is something like relieved to see the bandages he’s had wrapped around the bottom half of his face since they left the village have finally been loosened. It does, however, leave his sharp teeth entirely visible as he tears into a piece of jerky, and Iruka has to jerk his eyes back down before he asks an inappropriate question.

Not a _bad_ question, or a perverted one, because he’s not _Kakashi_. But just—a rude one, because Zabuza hasn’t seemed the type to share, and Iruka probably shouldn’t push, knowing that.

And then, into the (strained, in Iruka’s opinion) silence, Zabuza huffs. He slumps back against the tree he’s sitting under, his huge overcompensation of a sword at his knee, and asks, “How’d Konoha pick who went in the lotto?”

Iruka blinks. Of all the questions, he didn’t expect that one. “By volunteer,” he says cautiously. “I—I work as the Hokage's assistant, so when he asked me to find people, I put my name in.” When Zabuza’s brow arches, Iruka can't help but bristle a little. “Chuunin were allowed to enter!”

With a quiet snort, Zabuza raises a hand. “I never thought they weren’t.”

Not entirely mollified, Iruka gives him a dark look, chokes down another bite of mealy protein, and then musters up the determination to ask, “How did Kiri pick you, then?”

Zabuza waves a lazy hand, and that smile is all sharp edges, even outside of his teeth. “Mizukage-sama said jump, so I didn’t bother asking how high.”

Iruka grimaces a little. He knows the Sandaime is technically a very lax Kage, and that Konoha has freedoms a lot of the other villages don’t, but it’s one thing to read it in a textbook and another to hear it said outright.

“That kunoichi with you—” he starts, and then pauses, not sure how to phrase what he wants to ask.

There's a moment of silence, and then Zabuza snorts. “Mei. Terumī Mei,” he says. “Our Mizukage candidate. If you're looking to hit that—”

Iruka splutters. Loudly. “What? _No_! I just—she—you—aargh!”

He shoves the rest of his ration bar into his mouth, scrambles to his feet, and throws himself headlong into the surrounding forest. He might as well throw up a barrier for the night before he dies of embarrassment.

The mystical item they're technically supposed to be retrieving is one that’s already been stolen at least twice, and picking through the trails the thieves left to find out who has the thing now and where they're holed up takes three solid days Iruka would _much_ rather have spent stabbing things with kunai.

“The glamorous work of an active shinobi,” Zabuza mutters, elbow-deep in scrolls. If he scowls at them any harder, they’re going to catch on fire.

Iruka contemplates this, and—there are better ways to go out than buried in the flaming rubble of local patrol reports from the last two years.

“My students would all drop out en masse if they could see this,” he agrees, dragging the band out of his ponytail and shaking his hair out. Having it up is giving him a headache.

There's another moment of surprising silence, and then a breath. “You're a teacher?” Zabuza sounds surprised.

Warily, narrow-eyed, Iruka glances up, waiting for the laughter, the derision. But Zabuza is watching him with an odd expression, head cocked, and there doesn’t seem to be anything negative on his face.

“Yes,” he says, a little grudgingly. “I'm one of the Academy instructors, during the school year.”

“Huh.” Zabuza leans back in his chair, and the tilt of his mouth is thoughtful, but it shows a distracting flash of those sharp teeth. Sharp eyes, too; Zabuza is watching him like some kind of big cat with a mouse trapped under one paw. “I'm surprised you didn’t object to working with me. Lottery or not.”

Iruka goes cold, then hot. The massacre of his graduating class. At nine, Zabuza killed over a hundred of his fellow students. It makes Iruka swallow hard, makes him push back from the table of the small patrol station, and when he looks up to meet Zabuza’s eyes, there’s still that heavy sense of _prey_. But—

Iruka’s never liked a bully, and now is no different.

“I can't begin to imagine your circumstances,” he says stiffly, and doesn’t let himself look away from Zabuza’s gaze. Dangerous, but—Iruka saw the Kyuubi tearing through the village and his only thought was to go and face it. A human monster isn't about to make him turn away. “But we’re both shinobi, Zabuza. I—I don’t agree with it, and I hate it, but you had a reason, and I've killed people too.”

A long, long moment, and then Zabuza unfolds himself from his chair, straightening to his full height. “I’m going to get food,” he says, and a moment later the door of the tiny station slams.

All Iruka can think about is those sharp teeth, bared, the look in Zabuza’s eyes. He lets out a breath that shakes, and wonders when his heart started racing.

“Up a damn _mountain_?” Zabuza says in disbelief. “You're fucking kidding me.”

Staring up at the snow-capped peak above them, Iruka is inclined to agree. “We didn’t bring warm enough clothes,” he says, maybe a little numbly, but it’s already been a week and a half, and now, with _this_—

“Fuck,” he mutters, and Zabuza barks out a laugh.

“Haku's probably murdered Mei by now,” he says. “Shit, I don’t want to be responsible for Kiri losing a Mizukage candidate and getting kicked back into a civil war.”

“We can pin the blame on Kakashi,” Iruka offers, and squares his shoulders. “I—is this the point where we trade last words?”

The words make Zabuza laugh, rough and quick. “Sure,” he says, grinning. “Ladies first.”

After seeing Zabuza with almost two weeks’ worth of bedhead, Iruka is entirely confident enough to kick him hard in the shin. “Fine!” he says. “_Why_ are your teeth sharp? How does that _work_?”

A beat of bewildered silence as Zabuza blinks at Iruka, and Iruka stares back, mulish in his desire to know. Then, startlingly, Zabuza chuckles.

“Is _that_ what’s been eating at you this whole time?” he asks, grinning. Iruka swallows at the sight of his teeth, but—there's a possibility it’s not entirely out of fear. “It’s a thing the Seven Swordsmen do. We file our teeth to look more like sharks.” He tips one shoulder in a shrug. “Paying respect to the Hoshigaki, who have it naturally. Their smiths made the swords we use.”

“Oh,” Iruka says, a little dazed. That explains why Mei doesn’t have them, then. “And—using them…”

Zabuza laughs, and this time his grin is a challenge. He leans in, and asks lowly, “Want to find out? I promise, you’ll come out of it with everything intact.”

Iruka squawks, but it conjures _images_ and he’s never been a saint even if he is a teacher, and—

His face is so red there might be blood dripping from his nose. Iruka can't tell.

“What—what did you want to ask?” he demands loudly, still blushing, and Zabuza snickers, loosening Kubikiribōchō in its harness.

“If we manage to get this stupid crystal ball,” he says, “let me buy you dinner.”

Iruka gapes, but Zabuza doesn’t look like it’s a joke. He meets Iruka’s stare with a raised brow, expectant, waiting, and Iruka tries to scrape together enough brain cells to answer.

“A—a _date_?” he demands, several octaves shriller than he wants to be.

Zabuza rolls his eyes. “No, a knitting club,” he bitches. “Come on, get moving. Maybe they're not at the top.”

“A knitting club,” Iruka repeats, maybe a little dumbly, but he follows Zabuza towards the narrow footpath leading up the start of the slope. “I—that’s more believable than a _date_!”

“That’s your problem,” Zabuza says dismissively, then pauses. “Oh,” he says, and grins. There are far, far too many sharp teeth visible for Iruka’s comfort. “Hey. Time to see if those barriers of yours work.” And then he vanishes into a thick mist that comes billowing down the mountainside.

“What?” Iruka squawks, and a kunai nearly takes his head off. “_What_?”

The thieves have the crystal ball the Hokage wants, so. At the very least there’s that.

(Iruka has a _date_. So. There’s very much that, too.)


End file.
